“I believe in vengeance,” he once told a reporter. In May, he began a
commencement address at George Washington University Law School by
saying that the last time he had set foot on the campus was January,
1964—the year he graduated from the school.... When he [was down on his luck and] approached a dean for help, he recalled,
the dean said, “ ‘Why don’t you just quit law school?’ I don’t remember
exactly what I thought he would say, but that was not it,” he said.
“Since that day, I’ve harbored ill will toward this school.”

and this one:

When I asked what got him interested in politics, he had a one-word
reply: “Rudeness.” He explained that not long after he returned to
Henderson to practice law, a client, a doctor, had asked him to
accompany him to an administrative hearing at a hospital. “As we walked
in, the chairman of the board of trustees said, ‘We don’t need lawyers
here. We do what we want to do,’ ” Reid recalled. “It was just so rude.
I wasn’t there to say anything. I was there just to watch. As a result
of how rude he was, I decided to run for the hospital board.” He was
elected in 1966, and not long afterward, he said, “we got him”—the
administrator—“fired.”

and this one:

Reid had been lieutenant governor for four years when Senator Alan
Bible announced his retirement. “I was a shoo-in,” Reid says. [Pollster Pat] Cadell assured
him that he couldn’t lose. “I showed him,” Reid says. “I lost by six
hundred and twenty-four votes,” to Paul Laxalt. When friends told him
that such reverses always turn out for the best, he said, “I wanted to
kick them in the shins.”

and, especially, this one:

In July of 1978, a man named Jack Gordon, who was later married to
LaToya Jackson, offered Reid [who was then the chairman of the Nevada gaming commission] twelve thousand dollars to approve two
new, carnival-like gaming devices for casino use. Reid reported the
attempted bribe to the F.B.I. and arranged a meeting with Gordon in his
office. By agreement, F.B.I. agents burst in to arrest Gordon at the
point where Reid asked, “Is this the money?” Although he was taking
part in a sting, Reid was unable to control his temper; the videotape
shows him getting up from his chair and saying, “You son of a bitch,
you tried to bribe me!” and attempting to choke Gordon, before startled
agents pulled him off.